Forget About Writing a Marketing Plan

Forget about writing a marketing plan?

That’s not exactly the advice you expect to hear from a marketing consultant, now is it?

Well, that’s exactly the advice I’m giving you.

Why?

You’ve probably read, or been told, that the very first thing you should do for your business is write a plan. Either a business plan or a marketing plan or both.

And generally speaking, that’s good advice. If you know where you’re headed in your business, and you’ve plotted a path to get there, things usually go a whole lot more smoothly.

Usually.

But there are those people for whom the very mention of writing a marketing plan is the beginning of the end.

The end of taking action.

Writing a marketing plan can often seem overwhelming.

All those sections to write, all those strategies to work out, all that research to do.

Doing nothing is a lot easier than doing something. Especially something that seems so complicated and on which your entire business future could rest. Too much pressure. Too much time involved.

So you do nothing. Without a marketing plan you don’t know what to do anyway, right?

Wrong.

If a marketing plan scares you, just forget it.

You’re going to resist writing one anyway.

Instead, just start small. Do one thing to propel your business forward every day. It doesn’t really matter what. Do the small stuff. Make sure you have business cards printed, ask people how they heard about you, work on a couple of new offers…

When you’re ready to move to the next level, or you’re frustrated enough with your current results, you’ll find that writing a marketing plan really isn’t the trial by fire you expect it to be.

But you have to be ready for that stage. And if you’re not, if you’re stopped in your tracks by indecision and inertia, if you’re chronically worried about “doing it right”, then just forget about it.

Marketing isn’t rocket science.

Much of it is plain common sense wrapped up in business intuition.

That’s why I’m saying that some people are a lot better off just getting their marketing done. If you recognize yourself here, forget about writing a marketing plan and get on with marketing instead. At least for now.